Orci and Kurtzman were asked by their panel's moderator about the Autobot duo Mudflap and Skids, who were widely viewed as a play on old racist stereotypes (but disguised as robots). The moderator broached the subject by bringing up the topic of cutesy characters that are included in movies for nothing other than kid appeal and if such a tactic is needed or not.

Orci's first, slowly stated answer was, "On a collaboration of that scale, many people's sense of humor gets expressed in the movie." While the screenwriters never explicitly mentioned director Michael Bay by name, Orci claimed that they had directly warned those on the filmmaking team who wanted Mudflap and Skids to be portrayed that way. "This character will be compared to Jar Jar. Will that be fine [for you]?" Orci recalled, adding, "We had our eyes wide open on that one [as far as how Mudflap and Skids would be received]."

The screenwriters were clearly trying to be diplomatic, but the most biting moment came when the moderator again brought up that characters of that sort are not needed to appeal to kids, noting that Pixar Animation never does it. Kurtzman replied, "That's right. You don't see that on Pixar movies, because they know what they're doing at Pixar." (The audience applauded for that one.)

Talking about the reaction to the movie, Kurtzman said, "The tough part of a movie like Transformers 2 is, I don't want to say battles, but the process you go through to fight for what you want on screen… And then the absolute savaging you take from critics for things you fought against." He said that they didn't want to say "poor me," and that they knew, "We're incredibly lucky."

Kurtzman added, "What amazes us is the amount of credit we're given for these choices. I guess we should be flattered by it! The amount of credit we're given for choices we wouldn't necessarily make…" He said the truth was, "We can't just walk into a room and bowl these people over" – again, obviously referring to someone such as Bay who has say above them.

As was previously reported, Kurtzman and Orci will not return to script Transformers 3.